I Own a Garage Door Opener

It has always been my dream to have a two car garage with a fine garage door opener. You know, one of those homes where you push the button on the ceiling of your car and drive right inside to unload your clumsy bags of groceries. There have been homes that we have owned that had garages and we even owned a garage door opener once but we never had the door and the opener at the same time, so I am quite excited that the bank accepted our ridiculously low offer for a brand, spanking, new home. Yes, that gorgeous home in my last blog will be all ours - and the banks - next month.
Now all we have to do is pack, move, and sell our mobile home.

Be sure to check out the "Chicken Feet" story by Bill in our Rockbridge Roots blog. http://blimes-intothepast.blogspot.com/. We will be putting many more family stories on this site in the next few weeks.

Our Latest House!

The sun shines on our happy home.

The view from the back yard.

The view from the lanai.

The master bath with a garden tub and separate shower.

Looking from the living room to the back of the house.

The front porch with columns.

My kitchen sink. Isn't it lovely?

This is Bill's media room. It is a unique floor plan with this room jutting out into the large living area.

This is the view from the front door looking towards the kitchen.

God is in His heaven and all is right with the world. Bill found his external hard drive and hid it in my chair. He misplaced it when he unpacked his computer and was so discouraged to think that he had lost all of his stuff. So, here are the pictures of what we hope will be our new home.

Our New House?

This post was supposed to have pictures of the house that we put an offer on yesterday but I can only tell you how beautiful it is. I know that won't convey what I want you to see but I have no choice. When we packed up at our hotel in Ft. Myers this morning and happily went off to church we left our external hard drive sitting on the bed in the hotel room. Yes, it has all of our house pictures on it. It contains ALL of our pictures and lots more. It is how Bill keeps his computer from getting too much stuff crammed on it so he put everything that he could on his external hard drive and now it is gone. I called the nice lady at the hotel and she checked the lost and found and she found-nothing. Someone found a few clothes in a room but no one turned in anything technical so it looks like it may really be lost. Anyway, it is a really cool house and we will know by tomorrow night whether it is ours or not. So, for those of you to whom I promised pictures, sorry, I have none. I do have them in my memory but that only helps me, not you. Now I need to go and try to cheer my honey. He is rather bumbed out from losing so much of his recorded details and so many irreplaceable pictures. If our offer is accepted tomorrow we will go back down next month and take new pictures and transfer them to a CD.

A Week Without the Internet!!!

It seems like forever since I was able to access the internet from my own compaq computer. What a pain. When I wanted to check my email I had to wait until Bill was not on his dell and then go and hardwire it into the cable modem. Our router would not work no matter who we called or what we did or how frustrated we got. Thanks to the help of our friend, Harvey, we are now up and running again with WIFI. We go off duty tomorrow and back to Florida- so there may be a smidgen of time during our break when I can actually compose something worth reading. Thanks for hanging in there with me while I took this unexpected pause. Thanks also to those who wrote to Dillon in South Korea. I know that it means a lot to him to hear from those he is serving, (and the encouragement for doing something so useful is good for him, too). So, adieu, for a day or two.

HAPPY HOLIDAY TO YOU

HAPPY HOLIDAY

It's Christmas Time Again
(by Bob Lazzar-Atwood)

Put your problems on probation
Run your troubles off the track,
Throw your worries out the window
Get the monkeys off your back.
Silence all your inner critics
With your conscience make amends,
And allow yourself some happiness
It's Christmas time again!

Call a truce with those who bother you
Let all the fighting cease,
Give your differences a breather
And declare a time of peace,
Don't let angry feelings taint
The precious time you have to spend,
And allow yourself some happiness
It's Christmas time again!

Like some cool refreshing water
Or a gentle summer breeze,
Like a fresh bouquet of flowers
Or the smell of autumn leaves,
It's a banquet for the spirit
Filled with family, food and friends,
So allow yourself some happiness
It's Christmas time again!

Love to all,

Bill & Sylvia

GUESS WHAT?

This morning the post office line was short so I bopped in to mail a Christmas card to Dillon in South Korea. This close to the deadline for Christmas everyone is standing in long, long lines (you know, the kind that go clear out the door) to send packages to far away loved ones. Anyway, I digress. There were very few cars in the parking lot so I veered in and ran in the door ahead of the people that pulled in behind me. Only 2 ladies were ahead of me in line. Whoppee!! I could mail my card to Dillon. I had no idea how much it was going to cost but I stood patiently while the two white haired ladies sent their precious gifts to their children and grandchildren. An employee came up to the empty window and asked if he could help me. I held out my pretty red envelope, braced myself for the bad news, and told him that I needed to send it to South Korea. With a sweet smile he said, "42 cents, please." I gasped and said, "Is that all?" "That's it." he said. "Any APO addresses are only 42 cents".
So if any of you out there have an extra card and any regular 42cent stamps left and would like to make a lonely soldier happy - here is Dillon's address.
Pvt. Blimes, James D.
Camp Casey
South Korea
HHC 1-72 ARBN
Unit #15077 Box 355
APO AP96224-5077

It's An Offer!

After looking at a kazillion houses in Southern Florida (well, at least 35) we have decided to leap out into the darkness and put a contract on a new home. Yes, we love our little house in Dell Lake Village but this is something we are going to do because we can (and a nice, new, really big house sounds like fun to me). This house is in Lehigh Acres. For those of you who have never heard of Lehigh Acres - it is a rather large area of newer homes that sprang up around a tiny town that was built out in the countryside near Ft. Myers in the 1950s. There are lots of spaces for homes but they did not all get built and the house we like is on the outskirts where the homes are few and far apart. Much of the forest area has been left so it looks like "old" Florida. This house has never been lived in. In fact I get to buy my own appliances and window treatments, how fun is that? I will let you know in a few days if the offer is accepted and how our buyer's remorse is going.